by Carl Nolte

Gus Villalta was one of those young men you used to see around North Beach in San Francisco all the time in tough times of the Great Depression of the 1930s. He was born in Italy, raised in San Francisco and had just graduated from Galileo High School.

Work was scarce when he got out of school in 1935. It was the Great Depression and grown men with families had a hard time finding a job. He was 18 years old, and any job looked good. So when an electrical contractor offered him and his friends a job working on the Golden Gate Bridge, they jumped at the chance. The contractor was paying 75 cents an hour, in cash. The job wasn't much, just an electrician's assistant passing wire up on the south tower of the bridge to more experienced electrical workers.

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Source: http://www.sfgate.com/